Well, A... the girls I goes wit round here in Acadie don't parlay that there Parisienne Francaise and they would titter and coyly smile at hearing such mon ami. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Eiseley, the chaps receive few away-production with the French and the faux French, thus to I' ll appearance it a small play, which we maintained, in order to play approximately 25,000 posts. We use " translate" to see you mark and to shift you the statement by few Sprachdann post office It in the changed form, over, which it looks as, or if it, as they say, " is; lost in translation." (English to German to English:)

Original:

Eiseley, the guys are getting a little carried away with the French and faux-French, so I'll show you a little game we used to play about 25,000 posts back. We use the "translate" feature and move the statement through a couple of languages then post it in the altered form to see what it looks like or if it is, as they say, "lost in translation."

Mon vieux Amos simply doesn't recognize a section from Rabelais when he sees it. Well, it's hardly my problem that his education has been sorely lacking. As I've said before, I see no reason to translate something from the original simply because of the unwashed masses. Mit der Dumheit kampfen Gotter selbst vergebens, you know.

Thanks, Stilly---I wondered where Rapparee learnt his French. I even found your secret message!

My cat had an infected paw. The vet irrigated it after some bit of trouble, and yesterday she slept the whole day on a nest of soft things the boys arranged for her. Now she is eating and drinking, and even jumped up onto the laundry table to look outside.

Poor Amos, he droops apace, You plainly find it in his face: That old vertigo in his head, Will never leave him, till he's dead: Besides, his memory decays, He recollects not what he says; He cannot call his friends to mind; Forgets the place where last he dined: Plies you with stories o'er and o'er, He told them fifty times before. How does he fancy we can sit, To hear his out-of-fashion wit? But he takes up with younger folks, Who for his wine will bear his Jokes: Faith, he must make his stories shorter, Or change his comrades once a quarter: In half the time, he talks them round; Then must another set be found.

For poetry, he's past his prime, He takes an hour to find a rhyme: His fire is out, his wit decayed, His fancy sunk, his Muse a jade. I'd have him throw away his pen; But there's no talking to some men.

Sigh. Best redirect your adulation to the author, one Jonathon Swift, LH.

Who also wrote:

Rapparree, locked in Bedlam knows, How to distinguish friends from foes; And though perhaps among the rout, He wildly flings his filth about, He still has gratitude and sap'ence, To spare the folks that gave him ha'pence Nor, in their eyes at random pisses, But turns aside like mad Ulysses . . .

It's not for me to say he has relapsed into such godforsaken habits of immoral conduct, LH, but the lines are so similar that some credit should have been offered.

A brief historical reminder:

I had a friend, upon a time, and a mighty friend was he. His tongue went loop-de-loop-de-loop, and his blade went "Snicker! Snee!". His fingers typed words of delight Dancing like light gone mad, But he disappeared quite late, one night, And the story turned out bad.

It seems his door was knocked upon, When most folks were in bed, By two large gents in wrinkled suits And large, and wrinkled, heads. They said he had been singled out, That someone Big was pissed, Berated him as a useless lout, And a goddamned plagiarist.

They listed tomes and poems and works He'd borrowed for a while, And touted up and frilled out In inimitable style. The said he'd never paid a dime To those whose works he'd borrow, And all of this was coming back, To visit him with sorrow.

They told him he was going away, Into the darkling deeps Where bad men worry through the day, And fret too much to sleep. Where hard men break, and life is hard, And you scramble for what you get, And there's no such thing as e-mail, OR a high-speed Internet.

My friend, he blanched, he paled, he flinched, He knew that he'd done wrong, He knew that even then his screen Held a half-baked stolen song. He realized then -- too late, too late -- He should have listened, way back when, To his dear Mom; too late, too late, He was heard from ne'er again.

And so I come to this Cafe, To write, and to forget, But something still recalls to me This friend I think on yet. I never learned if he had ever re-crossed that chilling schism That split him from the world he loved, On account of plagiarism.

So good folks all, pray heed this call, Think of this man, cast doon, And make your good works all your own, From your own hand, alone. Steal not the works of other men, Or lines of other poets; For if you do, they'll come for you, And everyone will know it.

IT is a reprint from early in this very thread when Rapparree was hotly engaged in his scurrilous and nefarious sticky-fingered ways. I wrote it for the occasion. At the time, Bearded Bruce was in the habit of taking poems from MOAB and putting them into a thread about "Poetry about the Mudcat" as well.

First, if I were to plagiarize it would be a totally unconscious thing, as my mind is so filled with literature great and small that I might well not recognize the source. Secondly, Verses On The Death Of Dr. Swift was written in 1731 and published in 1739, and hence is long, long out of copyright.

There is no theft where there is no intent or all who own dictionaries would be in jail. As Jonathan Swift himself commented upon your poem, "Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em."

Inch-thick lenses, and the green hair (which doesn't stop growing) makes playing the guitar, well, difficult. His complexion is sallow, he's short of breath, no vitality, has spots before his eyes in spite of the glasses, suffers from eczema, psoriasis, halitosis, liver spots, wrinkles in obscure places, and falling hair. Fainting spells are common, as is chronic diarrhea, constipation (at the same time!), burning with urination, dizziness, disorientation, enuresis, anorexia, bulimia, fatty infiltrates in the liver, chronic prostration, rheumatoid arthritis, and his toenails have grown through the ends of his shoes.

It's not a pretty picture and the doctors have told him that if he doesn't stop he might well injure his health.

Mr. MLS, Just because something is out of copyright doesn't mean you have the right to claim authorship. That you will claim it and are able to claim it (deceiving a few) doesn't make it right. What kind of theology did you study, or was it merely academic and not practicable?

Whoof!! For a minute I was beleaguered by sneering dark-garbed evil villains with snickering blades; I fought valiantly but their slurs and innuendos were more than I could bear. Suddenly, crashing through the clerestory windows on a white charger, the Lady Eiseley of the North, her wand breathing silver fire, came crashing and galloping, her noble steed breathing smoke and fire, the keen electric fire in her eyes spelling sure defeat to all minions of the Dark Side. Behold, my vitality restored, I booted the conquered vagabond knaves out the broken window and watched them plummet into the moat below.

Of course not, Ms MLS. It's just that I won't get sued or taken away by the Copyright Polizei and cast into some oubliette at the Library of Congress to rot while their Inquisitors put me to the Questions. Like, "My son needs a book on the Normandy Invasion but it can't have any violence in it" or "Do you have a photograph of Moses?" Horrible, horrible.

Some of the theology courses I had were Sacramental Theology, Social Theology, Scriptural Theology, and Social Justice. Some of the philosophy courses were Logic (including both traditional and symbolic), Existentialism, Classical, Cosmology, and Contemporary Philosophical Thought. Drama (as drama, as opposed to drama as literature) included Shakespeare, Modern, Ancient, Medieval, and Contemporary; some of the classes included acting various parts.

USing this Magic BS Meter you can tell what amount of bull you are hiding in your text. My last postr, in which I kicked two scurrilous knaves out through a broken clerestory window, was only .012 on the index, a very good sign of decent language free of BS.

After three weeks in the Garden of Eden, God came to visit Eve. 'So, how is everything going ?' inquired God.

'It is all so beautiful, God,' she replied. 'The sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking, the smells, the sights, everything is wonderful, but I have just one problem.

'It's these breasts you have given me. The middle one pushes the other two out and I am constantly knocking them with my arms, catching them on branches and snagging them on bushes. They're a real pain.'

And Eve went on to tell God that since many other parts of her body came in pairs, such as her limbs, eyes, ears, etc She felt that having only two breasts might leave her body more 'symmetrically balanced'.

'That's a fair point,' replied God, 'But it was my first shot at this, you know. I gave the animals six breasts, so I figured that you needed only half of those, but I see that you are right. I will fix it up right away.'

And God reached down, removed the middle breast and tossed it into the bushes.

Three weeks passed and God once again visited Eve in the Garden of Eden.

'Well, Eve, how is my favorite creation?'

'Just fantastic,' she replied, 'But for one oversight. You see, all the animals are paired off. The ewe has a ram and the cow has her bull. All the animals have a mate except me. I feel so alone.'

God thought for a moment and said, 'You know, Eve, you are right.. How could I have overlooked this ? You do need a mate and I will immediately create a man from a part of you. Let's see....where did I put that useless boob?'

...substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. . . . It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone, or any other Important thing-- and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite--that is all he did.

In 1868 I read Dr. Holmes's poems, in the Sandwich Islands. A year and a half later I stole his dedication, without knowing it, and used it to dedicate my "Innocents Abroad" with. Ten years afterward I was talking with Dr. Holmes about it. He was not an ignorant ass--no, not he; . . . and so when I said, "I know now where I stole, but who did you steal it from?" he said, "I don't remember; I only know I stole it from somebody, because I have never originated anything altogether myself, nor met anybody who had."